


Not in Control

by ImaRavenclaw



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Dark, F/M, Fire, Forbidden Love, Marriage Proposal, Meeting the Parents, Star-crossed, Young Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-30
Updated: 2016-12-30
Packaged: 2018-09-13 12:39:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9123967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ImaRavenclaw/pseuds/ImaRavenclaw
Summary: How stupid was I to believe that feelings would fade? A stupid naive girl betraying the will of her parents ever since the Yule Ball, I was.Pansy Parkinson/Justin Finch-FletchleyFor Jo Raskoph’s Telling The Parents ChallengeAnd PaulaTheProkaryote’s In-Laws Challenge





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first time writing more minor characters not in next gen, so please bear with me.
> 
> Also, I didn't really know what a safe rating for this story was, so I just went ahead and gave it the mature rating, but I might ask a HPFT mod if I could swing teen with this one.

 

_Remembering the Yule Ball was like dancing around in yesterday. I could recall it so well. I could remember Draco waiting for me with a rare smile instead of smirk on his face, holding his arm out for me. I remembered the way my frilly pink dress swished around my legs as we climbed up the steps to the Great Hall. I remembered the gasps of Daphne, Millicent, and Tracey at my beautiful dress. Millicent and Tracey were going without dates, but Daphne was with Ernie Macmillan. He smirked at Draco and Draco smirked back. Even though Ernie was a pure-blood, Draco rather disliked Hufflepuffs._

 

_Soon after the first dance, Draco left to go chat up his friends. Maybe he’d been sick of my protests at Viktor Krum taking Hermione-mudblood-Granger to the ball, or maybe he was sick of all my flattery. No matter what, it was here that I came to the realization that Draco would never fall in love with me, even if I tried to get him to. So, I found the first available person to dance with: Justin Finch-Fletchley._

 

_I’d been wanting to defy my parents for a while, and I’d finally found my chance. It wasn’t a big way to be insubordinate, but it was still enough._

 

_Justin seemed weary about dancing with me. I’d made smart remarks about him many times before. I never really meant to be mean to people, it was just my way of putting up a shield. I ended up hurting more people than I knew._

 

_Eventually Justin let me dance with him. For some unknown reason, my stomach knotted into a nervousness. A good kind of nervous. A kind of nervous that made me wonder why I’d ever liked Draco. A kind of nervous that made me wonder why we even cared about blood-status. What did it change?_

 

_“What’s wrong?” Justin asked me. Finally someone noticed when I wasn’t feeling myself, finally someone could tell that I wasn’t okay. No one really ever noticed. How had I not realized that before?_

 

_“I’m just thinking,”_

 

_“Well, keep thinking. Thinking is good.”_

 

“What’s wrong?” His voice shocks me back into reality and away from the past.

 

“I’m just thinking,”

 

“Well, keep thinking. Thinking is good.” I tried to give him a smile for the fact that he hadn’t changed. It felt so good to lean on him, and it may sound cliché but he’d changed me. I felt myself becoming a nicer and happier person day by day. So, I stared at the ring in the box one more time, and decided to take it.

 

“Yes, I’ll marry you.”

 

“So, are we still eloping or—?”

 

“No.” I said, with all of my courage. “No. We’ve been hiding for a year and a half and I don’t want to hide any more. I want to tell my parents.”

 

“Alright, I think we’re both free in like a week.”

 

“No, I want to tell them now, before I lose the courage.” I tell Justin, taking his hand and looking into his lovely eyes.

 

“Why not?”

 

“Yes, why not? The war just finished, that must have taken some of their usual edge off.” I feel like it’s such a good plan. Maybe we were too young to get married, but we were of age so it didn’t matter. Why would we care about something so silly? Maybe years ago I would have. I would have cared about keeping my family a pureblood one, and I would have cared about keeping it a Slytherin one, and I wouldn’t have cared about being happy as long as I had the first two things. Because it’s how my parents always wanted it, and it’s how I always wanted it too. But it’s not what I wanted anymore.

 

So right then and there, unannounced we showed up on my parents doorstep. Mother looked at Justin with a confused look on her face. She knew who he was, she knew who everyone was. Regardless she invited us in for tea. I’d made sure to keep my ring off, not wanting her or Father to find out right away.

 

Mother called Father down into the parlour. I stood up to let him hug me, and breathed in his warm scent as he mumbled “my dear Pansy”, in my ears.

 

“Well, I’m finally back home, Father.”

 

“Yes dear, we were worried. Where were you?”

 

“I got myself a flat. I had the money. And I’m interning at the ministry, since I had good school marks. And they’re even paying me. It’s not a lot, but it will do for now.”

 

My parents continued to have a nice little family-reunion type conversation with me, and didn’t even pay any attention to poor Justin in the corner. He didn’t mind, he had known that this could end up happening.

 

“Are you sure you wouldn’t like to come back home?” Mother asked.

 

“Or, if there’s any money you need.” Father added.

 

“No, I’m fine. But thank you so very much.” I said. I took a deep breath in, and looked at both of them. “Truly, I came here to tell you about something.”

 

“What is it, dear?” Father questioned. I slipped my hand into my pocked, and slid my ring onto my finger.

 

 _“I’m getting married”_ bloody hell it was taking much more effort than I’d imagined to tell them. _Deep breaths Pansy, you can do it._

 

“I’m getting married.” I said, quieter than I’d expected.

 

“To who?” Father asked quickly. I motioned for Justin to come over. He took a seat next to me, his dark brown hair falling in front of his eyes as he looked my parents in the eyes.

 

“To Justin Finch-Fletchey.”

 

Five seconds went slow and five minutes went quick. All I heard was, “go”. There was so much screaming and shouts, filling my ears until I couldn’t hear anything at all. Everything happened so fast. Dad dragged Justin out, throwing him out the door and into the snow, and I watched horrified, I could feel the fire from one of the outdoor torches dancing in my eyes. Then Father turned to me, I could feel hit after hit of him pounding my face, and telling me to leave him and stay here or stay with him and leave here. I picked the obvious choice. I stormed down the hallways grabbing my shit and getting out of that house, slamming the five thousand dollar door behind me. And then before I knew it, I was falling down the steps leading to the door, and I grabbed the first thing I could catch: The torch.

 

The wooden doorway lit up like a Christmas tree, and the flames started to lick at the house. Before I knew it, fire was eating up the only home I’d know as a girl. We’d been foolish, not bringing our wands. We didn’t think we’d need them. And then, before I could stop him Justin jumped through the doorway and thumped down the hallway. Where could he be going at a time like this? Oh no. The parlour. The idiot was going to save my parents.

 

I let out a breath of relief when Justin came out, coughing and carrying my mother. He laid her down on the gravel driveway and started to go back inside.

 

“Justin you can’t! Just leave him, it’s too late.” But he went back inside, running to find my father. It was the last thing I remembered before fainting.

 

*

 

A few days later I wake up in St. Mungo’s. Justin is sitting on my bed, holding my hand and smiling at my waking face.

 

“How long was I unconscious?” I ask.

 

“About three days or so.”

 

“Are you okay?”

 

“I’m fine, and so are your parents. They’re warming up to me, for saving their lives I guess.”

 

“That must be it.”

 

“And I told them that you’re not in control of who you love.”

 

This hit me. This was why I fell in love with Justin Finch-Fletchley. I fell in love because you’re not in control of who you love. I fell in love because he was nice, sweet, and kind. He made a better person, and he saved us all.

 

Why would anyone even want to control love?

**Author's Note:**

> Believe it or not I had no idea that I was going to burn down the Parkinson's house, ha ha.


End file.
